I’ve got a problem. Because I’m dumb.
See, it started like this: Caleb–my 8 year old son–came home from Cadets (a church youth groupy thing for kids his age) a couple Wednesday nights ago with a little bag full of stuff.
Well, he told me it was something he and I needed to work on together and he was excited. With his way-too-big-for-his-mouth-buck-teeth hanging out all over the place as he grinned and giggled, he brought the little bag over to me. I opened it up and scanned the contents. There was a long, flat hunk of wood kind of like a ruler. There was a short dowel rod and a block of wood. And a little bag with wheels. And some very complicated and convoluted drawings.
Ahhhh . . . it had finally come. I leaned back in my chair and scratched my chin and then, since I was scratching anyway, I scratched under my arm pits. As I scratched various body parts . . . I was thinking. See, I this had been coming and now it was finally here: The Pine Wood Derby.
Now, some of you just reading that get all excited and you beat your chest and you hearken back in your mind to your glory days of Pine Wood Derby racing and you mentally peruse all the trophies you won and on and on and on. And that’s great. For you. I’m glad you enjoyed Pine Wood Derbies and I’m glad you enjoyed making the cars and I’m glad you’ve got trophies.
But for me . . . this is something new. I participated in a pine wood derby back when I was 8 or so and in Cub Scouts, but all I remember about it was that we got to melt hunks of lead down and then pour them into pre-drilled holes in the car.
So as I sat there thinking and scratching, I also started to sweat a little. However, my initial nervousness passed quickly. After all, how hard could it be to make a little wooden car out of a block of wood? But then I read the directions. And when I say directions, let me just point out that even though drawings were included, these things were mystifying.
They spelled out in some cryptic language–some language that was like English, except without all the words you normally see in English–anyway, they spelled out in cryptic language all sorts of dimensions I needed to stick to. Rules I needed to follow. Regulations that needed to be met. Part A1 on the enclosed chart for example couldn’t be more than 3/4″ high and part F5 couldn’t be less than 5″ long. Stuff like that.
After I looked those over for a few minutes (and found myself scratching myself again), I flipped to the written instructions and was confronted with something that felt like the Ten Commandments of Pine Wood Derby Racing.
Apparently, there were tons of things I couldn’t do. For instance . . . it’s illegal to add something described only as “Lubricant” to the wheels less than 2 hours or something before any of the races. Lubricant to the wheels? I wasn’t going to add “Lubricant” to the wheels ever. What kind of lubricant were they talking about anyway? Crisco? Lard? Vegetable oil?
Also, each car had to be a certain weight, certain length, certain width. And any car not meeting all of those requirements would be “forthwith rejected and destroyed by the Obama Administration’s Pine Wood Derby Car Czar”.
Another rule . . . another Commandment forbade the use of any kind of axle system other than the screws that came with the kit. And then the instructions went on to say that the cars can’t make use of springs or any other type of propellant to make them move faster. No little model rocket jet engines, no rubber bands, no little tiny gas motors.
I read all of that and I couldn’t believe it was necessary to put it all in the instructions. Are there people who’ve actually done this? Who’ve hooked up rocket engines? Spring launching mechanisms? Little tiny gas motors?
Anyway, the set of instructions and commandments was daunting, but I read through it a bunch of times and figured I could do it and Caleb and I started on the car a few weekends ago.
Yeah, a couple Saturdays ago, the boy and I walked downstairs together–he with his overly large teeth and me with a head full of plans–father and son. We headed down there to build and to bond. It was going to be great.
We turned on the lights of my little work room, set the materials on my work bench and I cracked my knuckles. I explained that we were going to do a little whittling to start with and then I picked up a razor knife to make a few initial whittle marks on the block–you know, to kind of lay the groundwork for what I was going to create. Two swipes with the razor and we were back upstairs putting bandages on my thumb which was now bleeding profusely and stinging like crazy.
Before long, I was patched up and we went back down stairs. This time I thought I’d just go straight to the saw to make our initial cuts. And I did. And when I was done, we had a rough body that was starting to look like a car. Except for the nose–that needed a little more work. So I picked up my razor and two swipes later, we were back upstairs. I had sliced my thumb open again–I cut through the bandaid and missed the first cut by about 1/8 of an inch.
Two minutes later, we were back down stairs. I discarded the razor one more time and went to work on the nose of the car with my saw. That worked well. Until I compared it to the car in the crazy picture they sent and I’d been looking at it upside down. When I turned the picture right side up, I realized that now I’d taken too much off the nose and that it no longer met one of the 100,000 size requirements. I looked at the shavings of wood on the desk and wondered if there were ways to put them back on the car. I couldn’t think of anyway, so I had to get creative.
I studied the spec sheet for a while and found a loophole: the car could be shorter than the block of wood that I had. That meant I could cut the nose I just created off and I’d once more fall into the required measurements. So I did that. And from there we hacked out a very crude automobile that may win the prize for “Pine Wood Cars made by kids who have no father or adult figure to help them or any tools to use besides their over-sized adult teeth and a number 2 pencil.” If there’s a category like that, we’ve got a shot. If not . . . well, Caleb said it best when he said . . . “maybe the car will be super fast dad–it may not look great, but I bet it will be fast. Right. . . .? Right, Dad? Right?”
Oh, I haven’t told him yet, but I don’t know how that’s going to happen. Because after I mutilated the little car and he expressed a desire for it to be fast so he could win a trophy, I thought I owed it to him to really trick it out so it would fly down the tracks. So I got the wheels out and thought I’d go over the wheels with my razor and de-burr them and then make a few other tweaks. Well, I picked up my trusty razor knife and carefully sliced away the little burrs on the wheel and everything was going good until the knife slid right into one of the little wheels and removed a big hunk of the plastic. Caleb was watching me and he was all excited and he kept saying things like “Boy, this is going to be the fastest car ever, right dad . . . right?”
I just looked at the big flat spot on the previously rounded wheel and I started wondering if a squared off wheel will still roll if it’s really, really “crisco-d” up. I don’t think it will. But I’m hoping.
Anyway, I’ve got a week to go . . . hopefully I can pull everything together and produce a car that will at least not embarass the two of us. And in the meantime, I’m open to offers. You know, hapless father looking to buy one used Pine Wood derby car in good condition. Wish me luck.
See, it started like this: Caleb–my 8 year old son–came home from Cadets (a church youth groupy thing for kids his age) a couple Wednesday nights ago with a little bag full of stuff.
Well, he told me it was something he and I needed to work on together and he was excited. With his way-too-big-for-his-mouth-buck-teeth hanging out all over the place as he grinned and giggled, he brought the little bag over to me. I opened it up and scanned the contents. There was a long, flat hunk of wood kind of like a ruler. There was a short dowel rod and a block of wood. And a little bag with wheels. And some very complicated and convoluted drawings.
Ahhhh . . . it had finally come. I leaned back in my chair and scratched my chin and then, since I was scratching anyway, I scratched under my arm pits. As I scratched various body parts . . . I was thinking. See, I this had been coming and now it was finally here: The Pine Wood Derby.
Now, some of you just reading that get all excited and you beat your chest and you hearken back in your mind to your glory days of Pine Wood Derby racing and you mentally peruse all the trophies you won and on and on and on. And that’s great. For you. I’m glad you enjoyed Pine Wood Derbies and I’m glad you enjoyed making the cars and I’m glad you’ve got trophies.
But for me . . . this is something new. I participated in a pine wood derby back when I was 8 or so and in Cub Scouts, but all I remember about it was that we got to melt hunks of lead down and then pour them into pre-drilled holes in the car.
So as I sat there thinking and scratching, I also started to sweat a little. However, my initial nervousness passed quickly. After all, how hard could it be to make a little wooden car out of a block of wood? But then I read the directions. And when I say directions, let me just point out that even though drawings were included, these things were mystifying.
They spelled out in some cryptic language–some language that was like English, except without all the words you normally see in English–anyway, they spelled out in cryptic language all sorts of dimensions I needed to stick to. Rules I needed to follow. Regulations that needed to be met. Part A1 on the enclosed chart for example couldn’t be more than 3/4″ high and part F5 couldn’t be less than 5″ long. Stuff like that.
After I looked those over for a few minutes (and found myself scratching myself again), I flipped to the written instructions and was confronted with something that felt like the Ten Commandments of Pine Wood Derby Racing.
Apparently, there were tons of things I couldn’t do. For instance . . . it’s illegal to add something described only as “Lubricant” to the wheels less than 2 hours or something before any of the races. Lubricant to the wheels? I wasn’t going to add “Lubricant” to the wheels ever. What kind of lubricant were they talking about anyway? Crisco? Lard? Vegetable oil?
Also, each car had to be a certain weight, certain length, certain width. And any car not meeting all of those requirements would be “forthwith rejected and destroyed by the Obama Administration’s Pine Wood Derby Car Czar”.
Another rule . . . another Commandment forbade the use of any kind of axle system other than the screws that came with the kit. And then the instructions went on to say that the cars can’t make use of springs or any other type of propellant to make them move faster. No little model rocket jet engines, no rubber bands, no little tiny gas motors.
I read all of that and I couldn’t believe it was necessary to put it all in the instructions. Are there people who’ve actually done this? Who’ve hooked up rocket engines? Spring launching mechanisms? Little tiny gas motors?
Anyway, the set of instructions and commandments was daunting, but I read through it a bunch of times and figured I could do it and Caleb and I started on the car a few weekends ago.
Yeah, a couple Saturdays ago, the boy and I walked downstairs together–he with his overly large teeth and me with a head full of plans–father and son. We headed down there to build and to bond. It was going to be great.
We turned on the lights of my little work room, set the materials on my work bench and I cracked my knuckles. I explained that we were going to do a little whittling to start with and then I picked up a razor knife to make a few initial whittle marks on the block–you know, to kind of lay the groundwork for what I was going to create. Two swipes with the razor and we were back upstairs putting bandages on my thumb which was now bleeding profusely and stinging like crazy.
Before long, I was patched up and we went back down stairs. This time I thought I’d just go straight to the saw to make our initial cuts. And I did. And when I was done, we had a rough body that was starting to look like a car. Except for the nose–that needed a little more work. So I picked up my razor and two swipes later, we were back upstairs. I had sliced my thumb open again–I cut through the bandaid and missed the first cut by about 1/8 of an inch.
Two minutes later, we were back down stairs. I discarded the razor one more time and went to work on the nose of the car with my saw. That worked well. Until I compared it to the car in the crazy picture they sent and I’d been looking at it upside down. When I turned the picture right side up, I realized that now I’d taken too much off the nose and that it no longer met one of the 100,000 size requirements. I looked at the shavings of wood on the desk and wondered if there were ways to put them back on the car. I couldn’t think of anyway, so I had to get creative.
I studied the spec sheet for a while and found a loophole: the car could be shorter than the block of wood that I had. That meant I could cut the nose I just created off and I’d once more fall into the required measurements. So I did that. And from there we hacked out a very crude automobile that may win the prize for “Pine Wood Cars made by kids who have no father or adult figure to help them or any tools to use besides their over-sized adult teeth and a number 2 pencil.” If there’s a category like that, we’ve got a shot. If not . . . well, Caleb said it best when he said . . . “maybe the car will be super fast dad–it may not look great, but I bet it will be fast. Right. . . .? Right, Dad? Right?”
Oh, I haven’t told him yet, but I don’t know how that’s going to happen. Because after I mutilated the little car and he expressed a desire for it to be fast so he could win a trophy, I thought I owed it to him to really trick it out so it would fly down the tracks. So I got the wheels out and thought I’d go over the wheels with my razor and de-burr them and then make a few other tweaks. Well, I picked up my trusty razor knife and carefully sliced away the little burrs on the wheel and everything was going good until the knife slid right into one of the little wheels and removed a big hunk of the plastic. Caleb was watching me and he was all excited and he kept saying things like “Boy, this is going to be the fastest car ever, right dad . . . right?”
I just looked at the big flat spot on the previously rounded wheel and I started wondering if a squared off wheel will still roll if it’s really, really “crisco-d” up. I don’t think it will. But I’m hoping.
Anyway, I’ve got a week to go . . . hopefully I can pull everything together and produce a car that will at least not embarass the two of us. And in the meantime, I’m open to offers. You know, hapless father looking to buy one used Pine Wood derby car in good condition. Wish me luck.
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